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TALENT SPOTTING: SOCIAL POINT AWARDS VIDEO GAME PROJECTS

Recognizing and encouraging talent is a sure-fire way to support the industry you’re in – and do your part to keep the talent pipeline pumping. Which is why we invited 3 of the very best Masters projects in video game design into our Social Point HQ last week, to accept a special award from our co-CEO, Horacio Martos.

The three awardees are graduates of the Masters degree in the Creation and Development of Video Games; a postgraduate program taught at the prestigious Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and sponsored by Social Point. The winners were Andreu Pi Suari, who carried off a first prize of €2.000 for his game, “Child’s Manor” – a mystery and adventure game that follows the scary adventures of a little girl lost in the metro in a large city in Japan.

Andreu celebrates his win at Social Point HQ

Second prize went to Francisco Mosquera Garcia, who won €1,000 for role-playing game “Four Beasts” which sees the four spiritual creatures at the center of Chinese mythology set out to discover why the animal kingdom is out of balance. And Elias Pereiras picked up a prize of €500 for arena-style action game, “Playtime Stories,” which transports players back to their own childhood with the chance to re-live the playground battles of their school days.

Francisco chats to our HR whizz, Sandra, and meets the team at Social Point

Social Point game designer, Ignacio Montes, who sat on the Social Point jury, explains that the awards to these projects were based on the fact that all three felt like plausible games.

“These games really stood out from this year’s Masters projects because they felt real - in others words, they had good art direction and thoughtful game mechanics. They distinguished themselves by offering polished, realistic gameplay without being too ambitious and over-stretching themselves or players’ expectations.”

“It’s quite clear that these designers are thinking in terms of what player will be doing WITH and INSIDE your game … and why would they want to come back and play again another day. Putting yourself in the place of your player and imagining their experience with your game is critical to designing a really engaging game.”

For Andreu Pi Suari, the win is a very welcome approbation of skills he has been developing since childhood: “I grew up with video games, and I’m passionate about them. Making games is a way of exploring two facets of my professional life – the creative and the technical sides. This prize means a lot to all of us, I think. Not only financially, but a vote of confidence in our abilities and an encouragement to keep on doing what we love.”